Dora, who had begun very well at last, halted in her answer and looked surprised. Miss Carrington was glaring now at Dorothy.
"How dare you, Dorothy Lockwood?" she demanded, her face quite red with anger. "There is no trusting any of you girls. Cheat!"
There was a sudden intake of breath all over the room. Some of the girls looked positively horror-stricken. For the teacher to use such an expression shocked Laura, and Jess, and Nellie for an instant, as though the word had been addressed to them personally.
The teacher flashed her a glance. "Silence, Miss Morse!"
Dorothy had risen slowly to her feet. "What--what do you mean, Miss Carrington?" she whispered. "Do you say I--I have _cheated?"_
"Cheat!" repeated the teacher, with an index finger pointing Dorothy down. "I saw you. I heard you. You started to answer for your sister."
"She certainly did not, Miss Carrington!" repeated Dora, rising likewise.
"Silence!" exclaimed Miss Carrington. "I would not believe either of you. You are both disgracing your classmates and Central High."
A sibilant hiss rose in the back of the room. The girls were more angry at this outburst of the teacher than all of them dared show.
Dorothy burst into a fit of weeping. She covered her face with her hands and ran out of the room. Dora, defying Miss Carrington, muttered:
Then she ran after her sister. The room was in tense excitement. Miss Carrington saw suddenly that she positively had nobody on her side. She began to question the girls immediately surrounding the twins' seats.
"You saw her answer for her sister, Miss Morse?"
"Were you not looking at Dorothy, Laura?" asked the teacher.
"No, Miss Carrington. I was looking at Dora."
"And Dora answered!" cried the usually gentle and retiring Nellie Agnew.
"Why----Miss Grimes!" exclaimed the disturbed teacher. "You know that Dorothy was answering for her sister?"
"Oh, no, Miss Carrington," denied Hester.
"Why," drawled Hester, "that pin Dorothy wears in her blouse was on crooked and it attracted my attention."
That was the second thing about Hester Grimes. She was not alone a dunce when it came to acting, she was a prevaricator as well.
What might have happened following this explosion of bad temper and ill-feeling, had Mr. Sharp himself not entered the room, nobody will ever know. Miss Carrington had been led into a most unjust and unkind criticism of the Lockwood twins. She had been deliberately led into it by Hester Grimes. She knew Hester had done this.